A cashier, clerk, or other operator of a point-of-sale (“POS”) may need to verify the age and/or identity of a customer who is attempting to purchase an item for which such verification is required and/or may need to verify the authenticity of bills of currency (e.g., U.S. dollar bills, British pound notes, or any other type of bill of currency) offered in payment for the item. The items for purchase may include alcohol, tobacco or tobacco products, pharmaceuticals containing pseudoephedrine or other drugs; and other regulated goods and services. The verification may be required by a local, state, or federal government or agency and/or by store or company policy.
One way to effect such verification is by inspection of a driver's license, voter ID card, or other form of identification belonging to the customer to confirm the customer's identity and age. In addition, a hologram or other similar element embedded into the identification card may be inspected to determine the authenticity of the identification card. Existing systems bathe the identification card in ultraviolet (“UV”) light, thereby stimulating the hologram to fluoresce light in the visible spectrum. A camera or similar photosensor captures an image of the stimulated hologram, analyzes the image, and determines whether the identification card is authentic.
Existing UV scanners may present several disadvantages and deficiencies that make their integration with existing POS systems impossible, inconvenient, and/or cost-prohibitive, especially for POS systems that need only verify identification cards infrequently. Such UV scanners may be hardware-incompatible with conventional POS systems, for example, and/or their driver, interface, or operating software may be incompatible with the POS software. Furthermore, a UV scanner represents yet another device that the POS operator must be trained on, manage, and store when not in use. A need therefore exists for UV scanners that are more compatible with POS systems.